I attempted to serve the 2004 Roshambo Syrah from the Frank Johnson Vineyard with our dinner. It didn't work. The alcohol and heat on this wine when I poured it just wouldn't go away. It took well over an hour sitting in our glasses before the alcohol scent disappeared and I could actually attempt to drink this.

The wine was 15.5% alcohol by volume, had a cork closure and came in a wine club shipment, yet another one without a price list.

Eventually on the nose I found raspberries and cloves, plus a bit of earth and oak. I was trying to serve this with pasta, fresh tomato sauce and fresh grated parmasean, but that didn't work out, so we drank it by itself after (long after) dinner. Perhaps food would have helped this wine out, but to be honest, I'm not so sure. In the mouth there really weren't any flavors. It was very muted and all I can say is that the wine was bitter, astringent and thin. It really didn't do much for me. I can't find this online, but I really hope we it didn't cost too much.

Ah, the benefits of signing up for WineQ, I can choose the wines I want when I want them. And I hopefully won't end up with wines like this one that don't do much for me, since I can read other user's reviews before I queue up anything! (I have convinced Matt that we will be signing up when we get back from our upcoming CA trip! Woohoo!)

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You go girl! Good job on the WineQ--you'll love it. And, I just got my Bonny Doon club shipment and was pleased to receive an itemized receipt with cost of wine, discount, shipping, and total. Very nice--and I appreciated it all the more having just read your story :)

I'm even enjoying my WineQ! I just heard they have their sales tax engine worked out so most of the wineries should be good to go to places like Virginia...

As far as itemized receipts go, I have a bit of a quandary because I am not a big winery like BD... it will cost me more to put a personalized receipt in your box, a cost I will have to pass along. But if I put a generic receipt in the box that details only the wine cost and discount (but not the shipping), I can keep the S&H burden down and save you money.

Hey Dr.Debs-I'm very excited to give WineQ a go. I've definitely got Matt on board, so hopefully not too long before I go and choose my first set of wines. Lucky you with the receipt!

El Jefe- I would be happy with a simple generic list of the price. From what I've seen, most wineries include some kind of spec sheet on the wine in the shipment, but it often (at least in my experience) doesn't list the cost of the bottle. I'm smart enough to figure out that if my credit card says $67 from a winery and if they listed the bottles at $27 and $20 on a spec sheet, then they charged me $20 for shipping. But from most I don't even get generic "2005 Syrah- $27/bottle." I'd certainly appreciate that to help with keeping records, especially with "library" wines where the price simply can't be found online.

Isn't it such a disappointment when you get your taste buds all set for a wine to have with dinner and it goes downhill! Sometimes I get frantic and then start opening another bottle of something, just to have a good drink with dinner. Then I wind up telling myself, well, if we do not finish this bottle tonight, I will just cook with it. At least it does not go to waste!

Winedeb, I always have the best intentions of cooking with the wine, but I tend to forget about. So we usually toss bottles we don't like and just start anew! Though next time I get a not so great one I will keep it to cook with (this week's meals were all planed at the time!).

Glad to see you're taking the plunge! After I saw your post on El Bloggo Torcido about not enough wines in Virginia, I knew I had to get my @#$%* together and get the taxation software in place ASAP to allow a few more of our wineries to ship there.

Thanks Marshall. I'm excited to see more wines for VA....now, I'll just be looking for the Escafeld wines to be able to come to me, perhaps in the future...there are plenty for me to try now, but I do want to get those some day!

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About Me

According to my friends, I should drop the "Wannabe" from my blog title, since I've been at this wine thing for about 2 years now, but then I'd just be a Wino, and I'm not sure how I feel about that. Outside of the wine world, I'm a minion in the DC Metro Area, really an attorney, who harbors dreams of owning a vineyard some day. Since that's not a reality anytime soon, I spend my spare time reading everything I can about wine, visiting wine country any chance I get, and of course, drinking loads of wine. Please feel free to contact me with any questions about wine, the blog, or my attempts at cooking! Thanks for visiting Wannabe Wino!